Abstract

In this letter, a novel framework that uses wireless mobile miners (MMs) for computation purposes in a blockchain system is proposed. To operate blockchains over such a wireless mobile network with minimum forking events, it is imperative to maintain low-latency wireless communications between MMs and communication nodes (CNs) that store the blockchain ledgers. To analyze the sensitivity of the system to latency, the probability of occurrence of a forking event is theoretically derived. Also, in mobile blockchain using MMs, minimizing energy consumption required for networking and computation is essential to extend the operation time of MMs. Hence, the average energy consumption of an MM is derived as a function of the system parameters such as the number of MMs and power consumed by the computing, transmission, and mobility processes of the MMs. Simulation results verify the analytical derivations and show that using a larger number of MMs can reduce the energy consumption by up to 95% compared to a blockchain system with a single MM.